Who Writes Your Content?

29 Mar 2012

Melissa

Producing content is a task which isn’t always as easy to delegate as it might seem. The geniuses behind the product are often far too busy with their work to sit down and write content for a newsletter. Besides, those who are the most intimately acquainted with all the nuts and bolts of a project aren’t always a good choice anyway. Think of it this way: people who spend their days working highly advanced mathematical equations and spend most of their time in the company of other accomplished mathematicians probably aren’t going to give you a simple answer to your 10th-grade-level math question. Rather, you probably want to ask a math teacher. The math teacher may not know nearly as much about upper level math as those mathematical geniuses, but what they do know is how to break it down and explain it so that the average person can understand the concepts.

This would lead most to believe that the logical solution would be to find somebody who is familiar enough with the project to write comfortably on the subject but not so close that they lack the perspective to communicate clearly with those with less expertise. If there is such a person available, hurrah! If not, what next?

Well, the next step tends to go one of two ways: either a person who knows very little about the subject but is a skilled writer and researcher comes on board, learns as much as they can and puts their skills to use, or a situation arises where those with the knowledge find the time to put something down on paper, either to populate the newsletter or to inform others within the company so that they can pick up the job. In both situations, the learning curve can easily be dealt with by making sure the copy is vetted by those in the know, at least for the first few newsletters. Since it is always a great idea to have others proofread newsletters for errors before they go out anyway, this step is one that shouldn’t be skipped.

There are certainly other situations that exist, from very small to one-person operations where all tasks are shared to the large corporations with the resources to set up newsletter production as they choose. For those companies in between, the task of writing newsletters belongs in the hands of those with the distance to communicate effectively to the desired audience and the information necessary to do the product or service justice.